Shooting in Series As a production assistant carries the Varicam from one camera setup to another (upper left), writer-director Scott Dacko and his star, Mary Stuart Masterson, take five (upper right). Meanwhile, a camera dolly (lower left), no different from those used with traditional film cameras, is on hand to provide for a rolling shot in the next scene.

The shoot wasn't all that different from a traditional film shoot. Because HD captures a limited range of light, Kahanov lit The Insurgents a bit more carefully than he would have if he had been working with film. But he used everything from stationary camera setups to dolly shots and Steadi­cam. Primary sound was recorded on camera, via boom mic. Production assistants (PAs) ran around with walkie-talkies. A craft services table was never far away.

Kahanov set up each shot using an on-camera LCD monitor with a built-in waveform. "The waveform acts as a kind of light meter," he explains. "I know if things are clipped at the white end of the spectrum or if things are too dark. I'm not staring at it like it's a hard-and-fast rule, but it gives me an idea of where I stand with the light." Then, off camera, he checked composition, focus, and color on a 14-inch HD monitor. This showed the full 1,280-by-720 image, while Dacko watched on his own 9-inch monitor, where the shot was masked to show the final widescreen image.

Image and primary sound were recorded to HD tapes, each carefully cataloged by a PA. And across the set, tapping into a pair of wireless mics clipped to the actors, a sound mixer recorded backup sound to a 5GB PC Card hard drive.

The biggest difference is that Dacko was free to keep the camera rolling. HD tapes are so cheap, he didn't need to worry about filling them. This meant the actors were more relaxed, and in the end, the shoot was more efficient. "On a film set, as soon as you yell 'cut,' everybody stops working," says Dacko. "When shooting digitally, you don't have to cut. I can shoot in series. It allows for more takes, and it allows for actors to rehearse on the fly, which is invaluable on a low-budget independent production."